Bruce Sterling's Blog, page 811

It's one heck of a time to be a politician

http://www.globaldashboard.org/2009/03/14/how-to-get-politicians-to-take-global-warming-seriously/

How to get politicians to take global warming seriously

March 14, 2009 | by Jules Evans | More on Climate and resource scarcity | 3 comments

Political leaders are driven by a desire for power. They will tend to follow whatever is politically expedient in order to gain power. Right now, it is politically expedient only to make token efforts to try and prevent climate change, without making the el

Web Semantics: Synonyms for the Current Economic Situation

*Collected off Twitter, mostly. Thanks for the help, Tweeple.

Meltdown, Credit Crunch, Great Recession, Econolypse, Depression II, D2, Compression, Subprimicide, Economic Debacle, Great Restructuring, the Bailout, TEOTWAWKI "The End of the World As We Know It," The Long Emergency, The New Dark Ages, The New Austerity, the Inflection, The Great Disruption, Housing Crisis, Market FAIL, The Great Re-Skilling, Global Economic Restructuring, Tsunami, the Enronicom, The Great Ponzi, the Great Fake

All The Whuffie You Imagine You Can Eat

http://docs.google.com/View?docID=ajd...

Links

Slides
http://docs.google.com/Presentation?i...

Whuffie
http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyroba...

Jelly
http://workatjelly.com/

Coworking
http://whatiscoworking.com/
http://blog.coworking.info/
http://citizenspace.us/about/our-phil...

Spaces
http://www.soukllc.com/
http://carolinecollective.cc/
http://www.nwcny.com/
http://www.officenomads.com/

Twitter Fever Returns to SXSW Interactive

(((More:)))

http://gigaom.com/2009/03/15/tweeting-works-att-boosts-sxsw-network/

The tweets, blog posts and constant complaining about AT&T’s shoddy network coverage at South by Southwest has not fallen on deaf ears. Seth Bloom, a spokesman at AT&T, emailed me 10 minutes ago to say that the carrier is adding capacity to the downtown Austin network, and attendees should see their iPhone (or other AT&T device) experience improve by this evening. Bloom writes:

"To accommodate unprecedented dem

Arphid Watch: Activists ticked off over RFID in food chain

(((Came in over the transom via a friend; this particular
anticorporate, anti-RFID group is new to me.)))

From: The Pen

Subject: Urgent: Stop Corporate Fascists From Taking Over Our Food Supply

Please note: We told you about this issue last week and many of you
responded. But we still need your comments with the USDA by the end
of the day, Monday, March 16, to stop the incredibly destructive
corporate scheme described below. Congress is already trying to st

Cheerfully linking to the miserabilist science fictional defeatism

http://www.irosf.com/q/zine/article/10519

*Okay, that's a sorta readable rah-rah article about how the death
of printed American SF is overrated. But then spool on down into the
letter column, and watch Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Lois Tilton launch
into a public catfight about who's more snivellingly miserable
than thou.

*How can commercial science fiction be dead when even wing-and-a-prayer
fanzines like IROSF can still make the fur fly? By golly, I'd like to
waltz right over there and give

Dallas: the green frontier

[image error]

The 6th competition in a series, Re:Vision DALLAS is an
opportunity to transform an existing city block in Dallas into
a model of cutting-edge sustainable practices.

We invite you to be part of this ground-breaking effort and help lay
the foundation for sustainable urban design, as well as the opportunity to
collaborate on a highly visible project for your firm.

http://www.urbanrevision.com/competit...

ENTER NOW
http://list.namasteinteractive.com/c....

John Thackara's Designer Tweets from America

Doors of Perception Report
March 2009
Tweets from America
by John Thackara

Everyone tweeted madly during my talk at the Interaction Design
Association (IxDA) conference in Vancouver. The Twitter-enabled crowd
seemed split as to whether my dire warnings about peak protein and peak
indium were the proper concern of interaction design. I remain split on
whether or not this new communication medium addles the brain.
http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%2...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/joshdamo...

Dead Media Beat: Movies Dying Along With Their Substrate

http://www.movingimagesource.us/articles/the-vanishing-20090226

"Like the Hawaiian crow and the Chinese river dolphin, Costa-Gavras's 1972 Uruguayan political thriller State of Siege is effectively extinct. While it survives in a few, used VHS versions (you can get one through Amazon.com at $159.99) and presumably somewhere in 16mm or 35mm film prints, it is among hundreds of important and critically acclaimed films no longer readily accessible for home viewing.

"In the wake of video-store s

Return of Devo

*Now that's some kinda cultural news, ladies and gentlemen.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/mar/11/devo-to-release-new-album

"Fuelling Devo's argument that the world has devolved, (((they always were intellectuals among the punkocracy))) 2009 is already shaping up to be a busy year for the band. Besides shows in their native US, Devo will visit the UK in May, performing a greatest hits set at the All Tomorrow's Parties festival. A few days earlier they will play London's Kentish Town F